In an electronic apparatus, a storage device is generally provided to store data of any kind. In the field of information technology, this data can define the way the apparatus operates (software) or information to be used by the various programs. In the field of consumer electronics, the data are generally a coded representation of a video signal and/or an audio signal.
The storage device can be either removable, such as an optical disc, or non-removable, such as a hard disc drive or a solid-state memory. In any case, in an effort to reduce the size of the electronic apparatus, designers must integrate electronic circuits linked to the storage device in a limited space, which generates too much heat to be evacuated by natural convection.
It has thus been proposed to provide the electronic apparatus with a blower to generate artificial convection, as described for instance in patent application US 2002/0051 338 and patents U.S. Pat. No. 6,480,380 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,538,886. U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,055 discloses an optical disk drive that is equipped with an air-cooling fan. The air-cooling fan is attached on a PCB, and the fan and the PCB are mounted to a bracket which takes up the optical disk drive. U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,230 discloses a fan module which can be mounted in a housing together with electronic circuit modules. The fan module comprises a PCB with an opening that is larger than the fan that is mounted. The fan can be moved to any position over the opening along two mounting rails.
Previous designs are however complicated. Notably, they cannot be easily integrated in an electronic apparatus having a printed circuit board implementing further functions, such as video processing, for instance in a personal video recorder.